Trump
Trump Bragged To Bob Woodward About Letting Prince Bone Saw Get Away With Murder
He says very strongly he didn't do it, Bob.
September 11, 2020 08:35 AM
Donald Trump is pretty proud of the terrific job he did of protecting Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) from facing any consequences over the 2018 murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and he didn't mind telling Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward all about it. That's the latest Scandal McNugget from Woodward's book Help! There's a Sociopath in the White House and He's Scaring Me! according to Business insider, which got a copy of the book (also known by its real title, Rage). Trump bragged to Woodward that "I saved his ass" during international outrage at the Saudis for assassinating and dismembering Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul. Trump just couldn't stop patting himself on the back about the great job he'd done preserving the US's very lucrative and influential military sales to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which would be nothing without an important friend like Donald Trump.
Why no, the horror of the deliberate murder and dismemberment of a journalist who lived in America didn't seem to occur at all to Trump. People do bad things all the time and there are dictators to impress.
<p>Woodward wrote that Trump had called him on January 22, following the World Economic Summit at Davos, Switzerland. Hey, Mr. "President," how about that horrible political murder of a <em>Washington Post</em> columnist who criticized the Saudi government? That's pretty awful, huh? Care to stand up for the freedom of journalists to criticize repressive regimes? Haha, of course you don't!</p><blockquote>"The people at the Post are upset about the Khashoggi killing," Woodward told Trump [...]. "That is one of the most gruesome things. You yourself have said." <br><br>"Yeah, but Iran is killing 36 people a day, so —" Trump began, before Woodward redirected the conversation and continued to press Trump about MBS's role in ordering Khashoggi's killing.<br><br>"I saved his ass," Trump had said amid the US outcry following Khashoggi's murder, the book says. "I was able to get Congress to leave him alone. I was able to get them to stop."</blockquote><p>That's the thing people don't understand about Donald Trump: He does have empathy, for himself and the people he wants to impress. Anyone else, of course, is unimportant, and why should he give two shits? </p><p>Trump went on to tell Woodward that when it comes to understanding the ramifications of allowing a US ally to get away with silencing a critic by sending a kill team to a third country, murdering him in the embassy, and then disposing of his dismembered remains who know where, nobody's smarter than Donald J. Trump, top diplomat: "Well, I understand what you're saying, and I've gotten involved very much. I know everything about the whole situation." </p><p>We're frankly surprised that Trump didn't then tell Woodward how good he is at pointing to "camel." You know they have lots of camels in Saudi Arabia, Bob? But they have cars, too, big Mercedes limousines. A lot of people don't know they have cars, not just camels. </p><p>But it's true that Trump was big league involved in the aftermath of the killing, even<a href="https://www.wonkette.com/arms-sales-are-temporary-but-bone-saw-week-is-forever" target="_blank"> sending Secretary of State Mike Pompeo</a> to Saudi Arabia to (allegedly) help the royals figure out how to shield themselves from responsibility, at least according to an outlet linked to the Turkish government. At the very least, Pompeo held MBS's hand, assured him we're still best pals, and didn't scold him or call him a very naughty crown prince.</p><p>Even though US intelligence determined that the crown prince had ordered Khashoggi's murder (as had other countries' intelligence services, <a href="https://www.wonkette.com/un-khashoggi-report" target="_self">and a UN report</a>), Trump wanted Woodward to know he believes MBS when he says he's innocent. That, after all, is the most useful statement to Trump, so it must be the truth. </p><blockquote>"He will always say that he didn't do it," Trump said of MBS. "He says that to everybody, and frankly I'm happy that he says that. But he will say that to you, he will say that to Congress, and he will say that to everybody. He's never said he did it."<br><br>"Do you believe that he did it?" Woodward asked.<br><br>"No, he says that he didn't do it," Trump replied.</blockquote><p>And here's the tell, kids: Trump believes MBS's denials because the Kingdom buys loads and loads of US weapons, and that's the fact that matters most.</p><blockquote>"I know, but do you really believe —" Woodward said before Trump cut him off.<br><br>"He says very strongly that he didn't do it," Trump said. "Bob, they spent $400 billion over a fairly short period of time."</blockquote><p>And that's how Donald Trump knows MBS is telling the truth and everyone else has it wrong. Besides, they have that religion of theirs, whatever it is, and that makes the Saudis big players. Which makes Trump a big player:</p><blockquote>And you know, they're in the Middle East. You know, they're big. Because of their religious monuments, you know, they have the real power. They have the oil, but they also have the great monuments for religion. You know that, right? For that religion.<br><br>They wouldn't last a week if we're not there, and they know it.</blockquote><p>You don't just throw away your friendship with a big player over some journalist, Bob. Journalists are a dime a dozen, but princes are hard to come by. </p><p>The Business Insider piece doesn't note whether Bob Woodward knows about the monuments. But it did <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-woodward-i-saved-his-ass-mbs-khashoggi-rage-2020-9" target="_blank">point out </a>that at Trump's presser yesterday, a reporter tried to get Trump to explain the comments reported in the book. We'll give you the full paragraph because we love how carefully it makes use of quotation marks: </p><blockquote>When a reporter pressed Trump on Thursday about what the president meant when he said he'd "saved" the Saudi leader's "ass," Trump replied: "You'll have to figure that out yourself."</blockquote><p>Ooh! We know! We know! Pick us! Trump means he saved MBS's ass because it's a very good ass for doing business with, and if he hadn't saved it, Trump wouldn't be able to kiss it, happy Friday, the end.</p><p>[<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-woodward-i-saved-his-ass-mbs-khashoggi-rage-2020-9" target="_blank">Business Insider</a>]</p><p>Yr Wonkette is entirely supported by reader donations. Please save our ass so we can keep bringing you all the news and dick jokes.</p><p></p><p><a href="https://amzn.to/33mKzZe" target="_blank">Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons</a>.</p><p></p><p></p><form name="donation" method="post" class="donation-form"><p class="subheadline">How often would you like to donate?</p><div class="form-row row--plan"><label class="plan-type__label"><input type="radio" name="plan_type" value="once" class="plan-type" required="" checked> Just once
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Elections
A Soupçon Of GOP Pre-Convention Bullsh*t!
It's your Sunday show rundown!
August 24, 2020 02:32 PM
What a week it was!
After 4 days of what was a pretty successful DNC Convention, we were treated to the news that Steve Bannon was arrested for defrauding MAGA rubes who donated to his "Build The Wall" scam! Then you find out he was arrested in a boat by the damn post office. But that's not all! Then you had Mary L. Trump, niece of Donald J., who wrote a tell-all book about him, release "secret" tapes of Trump's own sister badmouthing him to the Washington Post. If this isn't definitive prove that if there is a benevolent deity, it's a woman with a great sense of humor, I don't know what is.
So with that, let's take a look at what GOP idiots said on the Sunday shows, as the Republican National Convention was about to kick off.
<p>
We begin on CNN's "State Of The Union" with Jake Tapper, who had (acting) Homeland Security chief and '80s teen movie villain Chad Wolf. Tapper asked Wolf to clarify what Trump meant when he <a href="https://twitter.com/mkultranews/status/1296677203652960256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1296677203652960256%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wonkette.com%2Fr%2Fentryeditor%2F2647068781publish" target="_blank">told Sean Hannity</a> last week that he's going to send "sheriffs" and "law enforcement" to the polls. Sean Hannity's Fox News show last week:</p>
<div id="279fb" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ab90ecc8138de8a839e50d4d02aab7f0"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1297523042151784448" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf says the President has not discussed deploying law enforcement agents from his depar… https://t.co/0QEMqNx3LD</div> — State of the Union (@State of the Union)<a href="https://twitter.com/CNNSotu/statuses/1297523042151784448">1598188574.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p><br></p><blockquote>
<strong>WOLF</strong>: No, absolutely he has not.
Again, that's not what we do at the Department of Homeland Security. We have law enforcement authorities and law enforcement officers at the department. We have express authorities given to us by Congress. And this is not one of them.
[…]
</blockquote><p>
Wow, Chad. It's almost like you're growing as a public official! (We don't believe him.)</p><p>Tapper also asked Wolf about the grifty fraudy border wall scam that got Steve Bannon indicted, now that Trump and his minions are pretending they never even supported that grifty fraudy scam fund for WALL. </p><blockquote>
<strong>TAPPER</strong>: So, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and three others were indicted this week in the Southern District of New York for fraud […]
You reportedly made an unannounced visit to that private border wall last November. You even suggested you supported it. You said -- quote -- "I welcome all that want to be part of the solution."
You were lending your credibility and the credibility of the Department of Homeland Security to what prosecutors say is a scam. Do you regret that? Are you embarrassed by it?
<br> <br>
<strong>WOLF</strong>: No.
Again, I think you -- I think you hit it on the head, which is, I said and I'll continue to say I welcome all that want to be part of the solution. I did not specifically endorse this particular organization or what they are doing.
<br> <br>
<strong>TAPPER</strong>: But you went there.
<br> <br>
<strong>WOLF</strong>: My visit to El Paso at the time -- my visit to El Paso at the time was my first trip to the border as acting secretary.
[…] I wanted to understand how a private organization, if they did -- if they were going to build this on their own, using their own funding, how it integrated with what CBP was doing on the border.
</blockquote><p>
So ANYONE can just up and build parts of a racism-fueled "wall"? Can they just add anything they want like moats and sharks with laser beams attached to their heads? I'm not an expert on useless bigotry walls, but I'm pretty sure it shouldn't look like a community quilt project of hate.</p><p>Meanwhile on "Fox News Sunday," White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows got the same question Wolf got above, about law enforcement being used a poll watchers, and he had a similar response.</p>
<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e7b17801bbdebe9e0e3e7acf19e5414f"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/esMgGeq-_9o?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Mark Meadows responds to secret Trump family tapes</small>
<small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esMgGeq-_9o" target="_blank">www.youtube.com</a>
</small>
</p>
<p><br></p><blockquote>
<strong>MEADOWS</strong>: And so, to the extent that we're going to deploy thousands of sheriffs, no, we're not going to do that.
</blockquote><p>
Of course this somewhat sober response was couched between his attacks on Mary Trump's credibility, which I'm sure was why she felt the need to bring receipts.</p><p>Meadows had other thoughts to share. On why Trump will veto a $25 Billion bipartisan bill that includes funding for the post office to protect the election:</p><blockquote>
<strong>MEADOWS</strong>: The $25 billion, you know, largely messaging bill, because it's going absolutely nowhere, has nothing to do with voting. It has everything to do with a political statement.
Here's how I know, because in the privacy of the negotiating room, I offered $10 billion […]
</blockquote><p>
On how he is such a craven ass-kisser that he's willing to say with a straight face that Donald Trump reads a lot:</p><blockquote>
<strong>MEADOWS</strong>:The president is not only well-prepared, but reads so much that it causes me to have to read many times well into the night to catch up with him and --
</blockquote><p>
And finally, here is Meadows being a coward about condemning a dangerous conspiracy theory movement:</p><blockquote>
<strong>CHRIS WALLACE</strong>: You can end this controversy right now. Does the president disavow, does he condemn QAnon?
<br><br><strong>MEADOWS</strong>: Well, listen, we -- we don't even know what it is. I can tell you you've spent more time talking on it, Chris, than we have in the White House. I find it appalling that the media, when we have all of the important things that are going on, a list of top 20, that the first question at a press briefing would be about QAnon that I had to actually Google to figure out what it is.
</blockquote><p>
We bet.</p><p>We end with RNC chair Ronna <del>Romney</del> McDaniel. When asked why the GOP convention will have some in-person events during this pandemic, like the DNC did not, she said this:</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1aa26a626cb36bcbe356f082cac9340e"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-JYljv82oQs?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
</p><blockquote><strong>MCDANIEL</strong>: [T]he Democrats and Joe Biden just said we're going to shut this country down again. And that is a really elite view of America right now. Now from a safety perspective, we tested everybody before they came to Charlotte. We have been testing people on site.[…] The Democrats are saying, shut it all down. Well, that's easy for Hollywood celebrities and privileged politicians but that's not good for average Americans.</blockquote><p>
This faux populism and care for the "Average American" would sound more sincere if:
</p><ul class="ee-ul">
<li>It wasn't coming from Mitt Romney's niece</li>
<li>The GOP-controlled Senate hadn't failed to even bring up the HEROES Act that the House passed, which provides enhanced unemployment and stimulus payments for Americans.</li>
</ul><p>
Also: What Covid-19 tests does GOP convention have that provides results instantly for a large crowd? Either they are bogarting the good tests for their shitty convention, or the RNC is going to be a "temperature reading-only" petri dish for coronavirus.</p><p>See you on the other side of GOP 2020 Hellcon!</p><p><strong>Wonkette is fully funded by readers like you! Click below, to fully fund Wonkette!</strong></p><p></p><form name="donation" method="post" class="donation-form"><p class="subheadline">How often would you like to donate?</p><div class="form-row row--plan"><label class="plan-type__label"><input type="radio" name="plan_type" value="once" class="plan-type" required="" checked> Just once
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Post-Racial America
Trump Tried To Sell Three Million American Citizens, As One Does
Able was he ere he saw Greenland.
August 19, 2020 03:11 PM
Why wouldn't the Danes want to trade their giant Arctic island for a tropical paradise off the coast of Florida? Why wouldn't 56,000 Greenlanders want American passports?
As the rats flee the Trump ship and start squealing about what they've seen, all sorts of hair-raising details are coming out about what a rancid shitstain our president is. No matter how bad you think it is, it's guaranteed to be even worse than that.
Case in point, Miles Taylor, the former Homeland Security chief of staff who recently cut an ad for Republican Voters Against Trump and published a Washington Post op-ed describing Trump's brazen efforts to punish Democratic states by, say, cutting off federal aid during a wildfire, for instance.
Today, Taylor appeared on NBC to kibbitz with Hallie Jackson about his time in Trumpland.
"What is the most, in the conversations you were involved in, disturbing idea, or thought, or discussion that you heard from President Trump that is sort of resonating and sitting with you still today?" Jackson asked.
<p>And Taylor was happy to oblige.</p><div id="ce564" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2725c16efb1af64ca8e80478013c450f"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1296142811633524739" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">President Trump expressed “deep animus” toward the Puerto Rican people, saying the island was dirty and the peop… https://t.co/6wjA3CQgei</div> — David Begnaud (@David Begnaud)<a href="https://twitter.com/DavidBegnaud/statuses/1296142811633524739">1597859502.0</a></blockquote></div><blockquote>There was a time when of course we were spending a lot of our day down in Puerto Rico after the hurricanes wreaked devastation down there, U.S. Virgin Islands, and other places. There was a trip that we made down there in August of 2018, and I remember before we went, the president said something. And your viewers are going to be somewhat familiar with this. The president has talked before about wanting to purchase Greenland. But one time before we went down he told us, not only did he want to purchase Greenland, he actually said he wanted to see if we could sell Puerto Rico. Could we swap Puerto Rico for Greenland? Because, in his words, Puerto Rico was 'dirty' and the people were poor. These were Americans, Hallie. We don't talk about our fellow Americans that way. And the fact that the president of the United States wanted to take a U.S. territory of Americans and swap it for a foreign country is beyond galling. But this was a recurring thing. This was the president. This was the man who sits behind the Resolute Desk.</blockquote><p>Can we "sell" three million American citizens to Denmark? Is there some kind of prohibition on selling people? Like maybe somewhere in the 13th Amendment? It's so confusing!</p><p>Golly, was the president joking, wondered Jackson? He was not.</p><p>"The president expressed deep animus towards the Puerto Rican people behind the scenes," Taylor continued. </p><p>In fact, he's expressed animus toward them in front of the scenes, too. While she was still paddling around the flooded streets trying to rescue her constituents, Trump <a href="https://www.wonkette.com/donald-trump-knows-who-did-the-hurricane-it-is-that-lady-mayor-bitch" target="_blank">relentlessly attacked</a> San Juan Mayor Carmen Julín Cruz and called her a "nasty woman." In the wake of Hurricane Maria's devastation, with widespread power outages and 2,975 Puerto Ricans dead, the White House blocked $10 billion in rescue funds at <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/08/01/trump-administration-place-new-restrictions-billions-aid-puerto-rico-amid-islands-political-crisis/" target="_blank">Trump's personal insistence</a>. </p><p>And, not for nothing, but after his staff was sent out to scream FAKE NEWS about reports that he was trying to buy Greenland, he tweeted out <a href="https://www.wonkette.com/donald-trump-cant-have-greenland-so-denmark-cant-have-donald-trump-nyeahh" target="_blank">confirmation</a> of the story himself in a snotty rebuke to Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen for turning him down flat.</p><div id="c17c9" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="06e6f2e93c3950de7c5667cb442fe040"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1163961884225277954" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">....The Prime Minister was able to save a great deal of expense and effort for both the United States and Denmark b… https://t.co/kG39jlNg1P</div> — Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump)<a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/statuses/1163961884225277954">1566345113.0</a></blockquote></div><p>But speaking of A FUCKING JOKE, check out the Commander in Tweet doing his very best Mariah Carey "I Don't Know Her."</p><div id="255dc" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="11fd0a2bdb3966a96442120a03e35f92"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1295699653753745408" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Many thousands of people work for our government. With that said, a former DISGRUNTLED EMPLOYEE named Miles Taylor,… https://t.co/iI55Vkw3ro</div> — Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump)<a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/statuses/1295699653753745408">1597753845.0</a></blockquote></div><p>Yeah, yeah, asshole. We've all seen the photos.</p><p>[<a href="https://www.msnbc.com/hallie-jackson/watch/ex-dhs-official-trump-wanted-to-trade-puerto-rico-for-greenland-90306117878" target="_blank">NBC</a>]</p><p><strong>Follow Liz Dye on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/5DollarFeminist" target="_blank">RIGHT HERE!</a></strong><br></p><p><strong>Please click here to support your Wonkette. And if you're ordering your quarantine goods on Amazon, <a href="https://amzn.to/2wbH77j" target="_blank">this is the link to do it.</a></strong></p><p></p><form name="donation" method="post" class="donation-form"><p class="subheadline">How often would you like to donate?</p><div class="form-row row--plan"><label class="plan-type__label"><input type="radio" name="plan_type" value="once" class="plan-type" required="" checked> Just once
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Congress
Pompeo Tells House Dems To Get F*cked, Rolls Over For Senate R's Biden Smear
Subpoenas are for little people.
August 19, 2020 11:08 AM
There are a lot of partisan hacks in the Trump administration, but for sheer brazen fuckery, no one can hold a candle to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
On Monday, he announced he was canceling an unrelated intelligence briefing for the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) to punish the committee for investigating the firing of Inspector General Steve Linick, who had been looking into eleventy-seven Pompeo scandals. Also on Monday, Pompeo's staff was ordered to expedite a records search for information on the origins of the Russia investigation to meet Republican Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson's deadline to dump oppo on Biden and the Russia "hoax." The House Foreign Affairs Committee, chaired by Democrat Eliot Engel, has issued a subpoena for the very same documents, but Pompeo told him to pound sand.
Cool, cool.
<p><em>Foreign Affairs</em> was first to <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/18/state-department-cancels-congress-briefings-tension-pompeo-lawmakers/" target="_blank">report</a> the cancelation of a scheduled briefing on the closure of American consular facilities in China and the takeover of a port city in Mozambique by Islamic militants. Clearly this falls squarely within HFAC's remit — it's the committee's IRL job to stay informed on international developments affecting the security of the United states, and it's the State Department's IRL job to do the informing.</p><p>Also within the committee's remit is investigating the abrupt dismissal of State Department Inspector General Steve Linick, whom President Trump booted at Pompeo's request in May. Linick was looking into <a href="https://www.wonkette.com/mike-pompeo-and-his-many-many-scandals-a-helpful-guide-for-the-perplexed" target="_blank">multiple allegations</a> of lawbreaking by Pompeo, from forcing staff to walk his dog to illegally greenlighting arms sales to Saudi Arabia, as well as everything in between. But last week, Pompeo sent Chairman Engel a <a href="https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/USSTATEBPA/2020/08/11/file_attachments/1516303/S%20to%20ELE%2008-07-20.pdf" target="_blank">ragescreed</a> accusing him of "outrageous" conduct in his investigation. If Engel's going to accuse the Department of "stonewalling," Pompeo will <em>show him</em> by refusing to cooperate with HFAC at all. On anything.</p><p>Astute observers will note that the obligation to comply with congressional subpoena has not, in the past, been conditioned on Congress asking nicely. Then-congressman Mike Pompeo accused then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of "dithering" on Benghazi and being "deeply obstructive of getting the American people the facts that they needed," despite the fact that she herself sat for eleven hours of live testimony. Back in 2015, compliance with congressional subpoena was not optional.</p><p>But now Pompeo claims an exclusive right to cancel <em>all</em> cooperation with Congress at his own discretion. <em>Foreign Affairs</em> reports:</p><blockquote>In an email response, a State Department spokesperson defended halting staff-level briefings, citing committee treatment of State Department officials who have testified in the past. "The House Foreign Affairs Committee's unwillingness to engage in the Constitutionally-mandated accommodation process has compelled multiple career and non-career Department officials to seek personal counsel at great expense," the spokesperson said. "In addition, at least one has been accused of lying before Congress without being given the opportunity to clear his name in an open hearing. The Committee's treatment of officials is not one that is limited to one 'issue area,' so the Secretary's direction with respect to engagements with the Committee is not limited by issue area."<br><br>"If the Chairman and his staff are unwilling to accept the testimony of Department officials, what is the point of sending up additional Department officials to brief his staff on any topic if their testimony won't be accepted?" the spokesperson added.</blockquote><p>Who knew that being mean to the secretary was grounds for disregarding congressional oversight!</p><p>But when it comes to the Republican-controlled Senate, the rules are ... different. Politico <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/18/pompeo-aide-biden-russia-documents-397895" target="_blank">reports</a> that Pompeo's top aide Lisa Kenna sent a <a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000174-02bb-d271-adf7-77fbcba20000" target="_blank">memo</a> to State Department staff exhorting them to get Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson the info they need for their Biden smear <em>chop chop.</em> </p><p>Johnson has hardly been subtle about what he's up to. Last week he <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/13/dems-ron-johnson-probe-trump-win-reelection-394987" target="_blank">told a rightwing talkshow host</a> that his investigations "would certainly help Donald Trump win reelection and certainly be pretty good, I would say, evidence about not voting for Vice President Biden." </p><p>And the State Department is racing to help him get that disinformation out into the electoral bloodstream before the election. <em>Politico</em> notes that, while the senators placed no date range on their request, Kenna deliberately limited the search on Ukraine to end in December 2017, ensuring that none of Trump's impeachable conduct would be caught up in the dragnet — remember, the State Department refused to cooperate with the House's impeachment inquiry citing "executive privilege." And while Grassley and Johnson specified no deadline, Kenna instructed her subordinates to finish the job by August 28, conveniently timed to accommodate Johnson's promise to get his Biden smear out in September when early voting begins.</p><p>The State Department rushed to assure Politico that this is all standard operating procedure, which is nonsense on its face. HFAC asked for the exact same materials, but Pompeo told them to get bent after weeks of sham negotiations about narrowing the scope of Engel's inquiry even after the committee issued a <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/21/eliot-engel-threatens-subpoena-mike-pompeo-hunter-biden-273379" target="_blank">subpoena</a>. In contrast, Kenna ordered the Department to do a word search of the entire database and hand over the complete results to Senate Republicans immediately in response to a simple letter. </p><p>Which brings us back to where we started, with Mike Pompeo perverting the State Department into a political tool to help Trump get elected and help his own political chances as a candidate for president in 2024. He's a fucking disgrace, and when we take back the White House, he's the first guy who should get a subpoena to appear before HFAC and the House Oversight Committee. Let him plead the Fifth if he wants, because he's not going to get any executive privilege cover once that orange excrescence exits the White House. </p><p>God willin' and the crick don't rise.</p><p>[<a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/18/state-department-cancels-congress-briefings-tension-pompeo-lawmakers/" target="_blank">Foreign Affairs</a> / <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/18/pompeo-aide-biden-russia-documents-397895" target="_blank">Politico</a>]</p><p><strong>Follow Liz Dye on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/5DollarFeminist" target="_blank">RIGHT HERE!</a></strong><br></p><p><strong>Please click here to support your Wonkette. And if you're ordering your quarantine goods on Amazon, <a href="https://amzn.to/2wbH77j" target="_blank">this is the link to do it.</a></strong></p><p></p><form name="donation" method="post" class="donation-form"><p class="subheadline">How often would you like to donate?</p><div class="form-row row--plan"><label class="plan-type__label"><input type="radio" name="plan_type" value="once" class="plan-type" required="" checked> Just once
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